Want to Know About Engine Oil? - Check This Out

[I'm_a_Newbie]

Hi All

For all those wondering which oil to use read this link.

www.turbodynamics.co.uk/oil_facts.htm

I just bought 5 Litres of GM Semi Synthetic 10W 40 for my SV650 as this oil meets API SL which exceeds the bikes requirements, but does it!
After reading this link I am not sure I am going to use it. :(

What do you all think?

Kind regards
Tim

[jonboy]

One of the big factors regarding oil and engine wear is the frequency of change. Even a cheap oil changed at 3k miles is likely to give you better wear protection than an expensive oil changed at 6k. Ideally (and if your pocket supports it) then an expensive oil changed very regularly would perhaps be slightly better, but only slightly I suggest.

I've seen other reports on the web that have shown that Mobil 1 car oil did in fact maintain its viscosity better (over a period of time) than some leading bike oils.


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[chazzyb]

Everything I've ever read about Mobil-1 suggests it's as good as Mobil claim, even other oil companies say it's good (usually). The article included above smacks too much of Silkolene marketing spin.

FWIW, I use the GM semi-synth 10W-40 in both my bikes - it's relatively cheap at circa £10/5L. One of the supposed advantages of synths is 'extended drain intervals'. I still change oil at the recommended mileage, usually under.

[tomjones2]

This guy seems to talk about the big three Kawasaki, Honda and Yamaha. :?

[embee]

Everything I've ever read about Mobil-1 suggests it's as good as Mobil claim, even other oil companies say it's good (usually). The article included above smacks too much of Silkolene marketing spin.



I agree. Nothing against Silkolene, but that's flying the flag with knobs on.

I worked with an engineer who had been with an oil company (not Mobil) for some years, and he said that Mobil1 did indeed perform right at the top of the list in every respect. I use it in the cage (buy in French supermarkets at about half UK price :shock: :lol: ).

[kwak zzr]

i bought the motul 5100 10w40 semi, any good? i usually use silkolene :?

[Cloggsy]

i bought the motul 5100 10w40 semi, any good?

Its what I always used in my SV - never had any problems :!: You can't beat it, 5 litres from Hein Gericke for £24.50 inc oil filter & air filter (but they still don't do air filters for the K3+ bikes :roll:)

[kwak zzr]

i know, i had the carb model filter and its on ebay as we speak! :D

[Cloggsy]

i know, i had the carb model filter and its on ebay as we speak! :D

You know it makes sense :thumbsup:

[madmal]

i bought the motul 5100 10w40 semi, any good?

Its what I always used in my SV - never had any problems :!: You can't beat it, 5 litres from Hein Gericke for £24.50 inc oil filter & air filter (but they still don't do air filters for the K3+ bikes :roll:)

quite agree. have always used this deal and never any probs either :)

[kwak zzr]

so if H G dont do a filter for the k3 what do you do at service time? not bother changing it or buy one from somewhere else?

[Cloggsy]

so if H G dont do a filter for the k3 what do you do at service time? not bother changing it or buy one from somewhere else?

I bought K&N oil filter & air filter too, the K&N air filter lasts forever :!: The HG stuff was flogged on :wink:

[madmal]

so if H G dont do a filter for the k3 what do you do at service time? not bother changing it or buy one from somewhere else?

I bought K&N oil filter & air filter too, the K&N air filter lasts forever :!: The HG stuff was flogged on :wink:

clogs old chap, just how much of a difference does it make using a K&N air filter performance wise to the standard one :?:

[Cloggsy]

so if H G dont do a filter for the k3 what do you do at service time? not bother changing it or buy one from somewhere else?

I bought K&N oil filter & air filter too, the K&N air filter lasts forever :!: The HG stuff was flogged on :wink:

clogs old chap, just how much of a difference does it make using a K&N air filter performance wise :?:

Not that much without re-mapping TBH... I only bought the damn thing to save money on buying replacements (& it would've worked too if I hadn't sold the bike :oops:) :lol: :lol: :lol:

[madmal]

i just do very basic maintenance im afraid and have never delved into performance criteria but have been reading some threads with interest. mine is pretty bog standard at the mo. just a ccc fitted. :(

earlier thread remember someone saying there machine was setup like mine and running lean, stuttering etc but never had any probs so far that i can honestly tell. smooth n fast :) did a service recently and fitted new plugs. old ones were pretty decent condition, not greasy or wet.

just out of interest, local car and body shop sell a high performance oil additive as used in race engines of all sorts. it leaves internal parts lubricated, has anyone used anything like this. stops knocking, excessive wear etc :?:

[kwak zzr]

cloggsy! would my k3 run ok with a K&N filter on and my scorpion can without a remap?

[embee]

....just out of interest, local car and body shop sell a high performance oil additive as used in race engines of all sorts. it leaves internal parts lubricated, has anyone used anything like this. stops knocking, excessive wear etc :?:

Just buy decent branded oil, it'll have all the additives it needs in the right amounts.

These aftermarket additives will always be advertised as being the best thing since sliced bread, used by all the race teams (yeah, right), what else would you expect?

Contrary to popular belief, most major oil companies actually know what they are doing.

[I'm_a_Newbie]

Hi

I notice from another post where the poor sod has to fork out a lot of money to repair their gearbox that the gear teeth are straight cut. This means that the pressure of the drive from meshing gears is spread over the entire width of the tooth. This means the oil has less work to do to keep the teeth seperated compared to a conventional manual car gearbox, where the gears are helical cut. Helical cut gears are quieter, but the drawback is that the contact point is much smaller. This means the oil must withstand extreme pressure. This is what the EP stands for in EP80 or EP90 for car gearbox oil. My guess is that this is why bikes can use engine oil for the gearbox as well as the engine.

Do bike gearboxes have syncro-hubs like car gearboxes? If they do, the oil used is also an important consideration. The cones in the syncro hubs must be able to shear through the oil to syncronise the speed of the hub of the gear you wish to change to. If the oil has too high a shear rating it will make it more difficult to change gear.

Kind regards
Tim

[jonboy]

Bike gearboxes are the constant mesh type.


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[I'm_a_Newbie]

Bike gearboxes are the constant mesh type.


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So are car gearboxes. It is a hub that moves to engage with the gear and lock it to the main shaft. I guess that if bikes are also constant mesh they must have some form of syncro hub as well.

Kind regards
Tim

[jonboy]

No there's no synchro. Car boxes are synchro mesh, as I understand it.

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[Viney]

A bike box is a proper, seqential straight cut box with no syncros afaik.

[I'm_a_Newbie]

No there's no synchro. Car boxes are synchro mesh, as I understand it.

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Your quite right. My grey matter must be failing me, i'm the wrong side of 40. I learnt all this stuff at college when I was 17. I haven't been a mechanic for over 20 years now, so I must be beginning to forget some of it.

Doh!

[embee]

Helical cut gears are quieter, but the drawback is that the contact point is much smaller. This means the oil must withstand extreme pressure. This is what the EP stands for in EP80 or EP90 for car gearbox oil. My guess is that this is why bikes can use engine oil for the gearbox as well as the engine.

Kind regards
Tim

Not quite. Apologies for the techie stuff, but this is my field :roll: :lol:

You get small contact patches with spiral bevel or hypoid type gears, but it's not quite the same with spur and helical gears. They both have line contacts.

Helical gears are not fundamentally different to a spur gear ("straight cut" or in other words a helical gear with zero helix angle) in this respect.

The contact pressure between teeth varies over the contact path, but you still design the total contact length to give contact stress which the materials and the oil film will withstand. As you say, extreme pressure oils can operate at higher contact pressures. Oils behave in an interesting way such tht at very high contact pressure the viscosity increases and they become almost semi-solid, but the films are then very thin (often a few molecules).

The principle reason for using spur rather than helical for bike boxes is space. In order to have small diameter gears, the teeth need to be stronger for a given torque, and stronger means bigger "module" (= pitch circle divided by number of teeth), i.e. the teeth are big and stout rather than small and slender. This also applies to keeping the gears thin (i.e. axial length), and the gearbox short.

Helical gears are primarily designed for refinement (noise/vibration), and the basic principle is that as one tooth pair comes into contact at one end of the helix, another is just leaving contact at the other end, so the total contact length stays pretty much constant and the stiffness of the contact doesn't vary much. Because the contact starts just at one end, the effective stiffness of the new contact is relatively low, and then the contact length along the tooth grows so the stiffness changes gradually, so the noise is reduced.

Spur gears have the contact starting and stopping along the whole length of the tooth at one instant, which promotes noise. As one pair come into contact, the mesh stiffness sees a step increase, and a step decrease when they lose contact.

There are subtleties in the manufactured tooth form which can allieviate these issues, addendum modification etc.

To get the helix to work in your favour you usually try to get pretty close to (or a little over) one complete tooth pitch along the helix, and so the bigger the teeth (module) the longer the gear needs to be to get one pitch without having to have a very steep helix angle. The helix angle imparts axial force from the contact along the gear shaft, so you need thrust bearings, and also tries to bend the gear and shaft sideways. High helix angles are not desirable. In really big gears (marine propulsion etc) you see paired gears of opposite helix ("herringbone") which cancel out what would otherwise be huge axial forces.

Sorry for the nerdy stuff, I do get out sometimes..........honest :oops:

[andy owen]

[quote="jonboy"]One of the big factors regarding oil and engine wear is the frequency of change. Even a cheap oil changed at 3k miles is likely to give you better wear protection than an expensive oil changed at 6k. Ideally (and if your pocket supports it) then an expensive oil changed very regularly would perhaps be slightly better, but only slightly I suggest.

I've seen other reports on the web that have shown that Mobil 1 car oil did in fact maintain its viscosity better (over a period of time) than some leading bike oils.


Car oil is ok for cars with there dry clutch systems ,but on bikes with a wet clutch, then bike oils have adatives to stop plate sticking and clutch slip.

[jonboy]

Car oil is ok for cars with there dry clutch systems ,but on bikes with a wet clutch, then bike oils have adatives to stop plate sticking and clutch slip.

Yes but they won't necessarily affect a wet clutch providing the oil has a JASO MA rating.


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[I'm_a_Newbie]

Helical cut gears are quieter, but the drawback is that the contact point is much smaller. This means the oil must withstand extreme pressure. This is what the EP stands for in EP80 or EP90 for car gearbox oil. My guess is that this is why bikes can use engine oil for the gearbox as well as the engine.

Kind regards
Tim

Not quite. Apologies for the techie stuff, but this is my field :roll: :lol:

You get small contact patches with spiral bevel or hypoid type gears, but it's not quite the same with spur and helical gears. They both have line contacts.

Helical gears are not fundamentally different to a spur gear ("straight cut" or in other words a helical gear with zero helix angle) in this respect.

The contact pressure between teeth varies over the contact path, but you still design the total contact length to give contact stress which the materials and the oil film will withstand. As you say, extreme pressure oils can operate at higher contact pressures. Oils behave in an interesting way such tht at very high contact pressure the viscosity increases and they become almost semi-solid, but the films are then very thin (often a few molecules).

The principle reason for using spur rather than helical for bike boxes is space. In order to have small diameter gears, the teeth need to be stronger for a given torque, and stronger means bigger "module" (= pitch circle divided by number of teeth), i.e. the teeth are big and stout rather than small and slender. This also applies to keeping the gears thin (i.e. axial length), and the gearbox short.

Helical gears are primarily designed for refinement (noise/vibration), and the basic principle is that as one tooth pair comes into contact at one end of the helix, another is just leaving contact at the other end, so the total contact length stays pretty much constant and the stiffness of the contact doesn't vary much. Because the contact starts just at one end, the effective stiffness of the new contact is relatively low, and then the contact length along the tooth grows so the stiffness changes gradually, so the noise is reduced.

Spur gears have the contact starting and stopping along the whole length of the tooth at one instant, which promotes noise. As one pair come into contact, the mesh stiffness sees a step increase, and a step decrease when they lose contact.

There are subtleties in the manufactured tooth form which can allieviate these issues, addendum modification etc.

To get the helix to work in your favour you usually try to get pretty close to (or a little over) one complete tooth pitch along the helix, and so the bigger the teeth (module) the longer the gear needs to be to get one pitch without having to have a very steep helix angle. The helix angle imparts axial force from the contact along the gear shaft, so you need thrust bearings, and also tries to bend the gear and shaft sideways. High helix angles are not desirable. In really big gears (marine propulsion etc) you see paired gears of opposite helix ("herringbone") which cancel out what would otherwise be huge axial forces.

Sorry for the nerdy stuff, I do get out sometimes..........honest :oops:

Your quite right. I think I'll shut up now and go back to college. Well it was 23 years ago I learn't this stuff and I haven't worked in this field for 16 years.

Kind regards
Tim